I had a lovely Sunday reading and watching videos on the Brain and the revolutionary science of neuroplasticity. The subject is of special interest to me as I suffered from brain damage after my two strokes.
For centuries the human brain has been thought of as incapable of fundamental change. People suffering from neurological defects, brain damage or strokes were usually written-off as hopeless cases. But recent and continuing research into the human brain is radically changing how we look at the potential for neurological recovery.
The human brain, as we are now quickly learning, has a remarkable ability to change itself – in fact, even to rewire itself.
Dr. Norman Doidge travels across North America to meet some of the pioneering researchers who made revolutionary discoveries about the plasticity of the human brain. He also visits with the people who have been most affected by this research – the patients whose lives have been forever changed – people once thought of as incurable who are now living normal lives.
11 comments ↓
I’m happy u’ve kept your mindset high after what happened to u. I don’t know what your deficits are, but keep the spirit.
Neuroplasticity is a bustling field. We are starting to know how to accelerate the process of brain tissue repair and i believe the practice will be generalised pretty soon. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Haven’t you heard of Dr. V.S. Ramachandran???
He has been studying this for years!
It’s our neuro plasticity which has helped us evolve faster than any other species and makes us adapt our “tools” according to our environment.
Our brain changes and adapts to “shocks” to its system, just like we are able to change and adapt to external “shocks”.
Hence why there is no such thing as “Personality”…
From what I understand Neurons form pathways in our brains which generate fast track paths causing what you may call habits. Habits would yield patterns of behaviors that may well be called personality traits. For years it was believed that the brain was not plastic.Indeed I heard of Dr. V.S. Ramachandran on his research on this field. The recent researches and discoveries do not question Personality Traits I believe?
It all goes much further than that.
Neuroplasticity has exposed the fallacy in the psychologists’ Trait Theory.
At the center is the Brain and our ability and capacity to learn.
You can compare Trait Theory and its “Personalities” to what was being said about the Earth before Copernicus and Galileo.
Neuroplasticity is comparable to Galileo proving that the Earth actually turns and it’s not at the center of our Galaxy.
To still believe in “Personalities” is like knowing that the Earth is not flat and it is actually moving, but also believing that it’s at the center of our Galaxy and that the Sun and the Moon somehow are still turning around the Earth.
As far as habits go… if you want to stop smoking, just stop putting cigarettes into you mouth! after some times you get used to you… you develop new habits.
Alarm bells start ringing at the HR department and next thing you are called for a new “Personality Test”… obviously it’s not your “personality” which has changed, rather your rate of subversion and degree of peer pressure. Because if you are able to individually generate such Will power, what else are you able to do and achieve all on your own?
Undoing habits from my experience is not as easy that just stop putting cigarettes in one’s mouth. How I wish that the science developed from the Neuroplasticity could soon bring the liberation of the addiction of drugs taken, addiction to sex to gambling to excess food and what not……addition calamities affecting our society. Somehow one’s logic is overpowered by other parts of the brain or body?
Of course it is! It’s that simple.
It’s a question of will power. There are those with strong will power and those with no will power. It’s the latter ones who are always looking for excuses. That’s why life becomes more manageable if it all hinges on someone else’s Will power – such as a God.
Addictions are just the manifestations of the lack of will power. Nothing more and nothing less. Every addict blames his addiction on someone or something else… anything but themselves, while it’s them actually doing it.
Drinking, drugs, lies, sex, gambling… they are all forms of escapism, inability to deal with reality. We all have them, but in different degrees.
All of that has nothing to do with logic, psychology and all the rest.
Those are our human, anthropologically developed coping mechanisms which we use to deal with external shocks.
No wonder all of those are considered “recession proof” businesses!
Then societies invented Religion… which came along and declared them great sins we needed to “overpower”.
The fallacy in that argument is as bottomless as a black hole.
Seem you have not had much exposure to the pains of drug addicts and other addicts. I have worked with and for them.
I was myself was a mildly addicted cigarette smoker.
I don’t know how you deduced that and came to such conclusion… but your methods of conclusions are not my problem.
Maybe it’s because your 300 hours of neuro linguistic re-programming hasn’t succeeded in making you see the big picture, rather it has shown its limitations – namely simply managed only to shift your focus from one point to another, pointed out to you by somebody else!
Granted I may well been blind to some points you raised. May I ask humbly,Could you specify them more clearly?
What conclusions did I arrived at?
I said ‘seem you have not….’this is not a conclusion more specifically it is a supposition that I am making and my intention was to provoke a reaction.
Thank you again for taking the time and pain to drop in & write comments.
Interesting way to look at plasticity.
I have been looking at how neuroplasticity works with emotional brain training, have found a good source of info: http://ebtnews.blogspot.com/
Keep up the great posts!
thank you…interesting
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